Green Journey

Chapter 524 Soaking Manchester City in a thermos, Wenger succeeded in renewing his life!

In the live broadcast room of LeTV Sports, after reporting the data of both sides, Zhan Jun suddenly looked at Zhang Lu and said with a smile: "Wenger used the three-back system for the first time in the past 20 years, but judging from the scene in the first half, They did a good job defending, but they were barely able to play offense."

"Hey," Zhang Lu smiled, "It's not a new thing to play three central defenders in the Premier League now. There are already enough people who follow Conte's style."

"Haha!" Zhan Jun laughed, "Yes, according to statistics, so far this season, 17 Premier League teams have used a three-back formation."

"Arsenal is the 18th team. Conte created a tactical storm of three central defenders in the Premier League!"

"According to statistics, in the Premier League this season, the winning percentage of the team using the three-back formation is 3%, while the four-back formation is 47.3%. Compared with the three-back formation, the two are 36.7% higher, but if Wenger really wants to It's impossible to pull Arsenal out of the quagmire with those 10 percentage points."

Zhang Lu shook her head and nodded again, saying, "Although we can't say that Wenger's transformation has found a direction for the team to reform, at least such a change is effective."

"This change also proves that Wenger has finally changed his football philosophy. He no longer blindly pursues offensive perfection, but begins to combine the characteristics of the players themselves, based on defense first, and then strive for greater victories. "

"Maybe after the change, Arsenal is no longer that gorgeous offensive team, but for the current Gunners, such a change may be the most suitable development."

"After winning the last round against Middlesbrough, Wenger emphasized that for Arsenal now, tactics, formation, possession of the ball, etc. are all secondary. When the team lacks self-confidence, changing the formation may help the players gain different self-confidence."

"Indeed it is!"

Having said that, Zhang Lu could tell in the first half that Manchester City did not let go.

Therefore, Guardiola will definitely adjust in the second half.Maybe it will let the players let go of their hands and feet to attack. It is hard to say whether Wenger's bus can resist it.

Although Manchester City's defense is unstable, its offensive strength is now recognized as the strongest in Europe, and even Real Madrid has been overwhelmed.

And Wenger's alternative 343 formation also made Zhang Lu's eyes shine today. The ingenious Wenger is indeed very good.

Many people think that the 3-back is a main attacking formation, but for Arsenal today, the 3-back is actually a main defensive formation.

Now in Europe, most people know that Manchester City's use of the ribs on the offensive end is very powerful.

And the defense in this area of ​​​​the ribs is precisely the biggest problem on Arsenal's defensive end.

So today Wenger let the defense keep shrinking, which caused Manchester City's triangle attack in the ribs to fall into Arsenal's defensive encirclement almost every time.

This also caused Manchester City's pass success rate to drop significantly.

At the same time, several of Arsenal's defensive players also protected their ribs well and covered up their own shortcomings when the defense line shrank.

After Arsenal gained a foothold in defense, they began to seek defensive counterattacks.

Although they lost unnecessary possession of the ball, they had an extra kick to transfer, which made the team's offense more direct.

The reason why Arsenal couldn't counterattack in the first half was not a tactical problem, but that Manchester City's counter-attack in the frontcourt was too powerful.

Every time the ball is lost in the midfield, Manchester City can often successfully counter-grab the first time.

In the second half, if Wenger can withstand Manchester City's onslaught, as long as he plays a defensive counterattack, he may be able to change the direction of the game.

……

In the Manchester City locker room, Guardiola stood in front of the tactical board on a tripod in the center of the locker room, spitting and arranging tactics for the players in the second half.

After a while, after explaining the tactics for the second half, Guardiola suddenly looked at Chu Zheng and said, "Chu, you can try more long-range shots in the second half, and I will give you unlimited fire rights!"

"Okay!" Hearing this, Chu Zheng's eyes became eager to move.

"..."

After a short while, the players from both sides returned to the field and changed sides to fight again.

After the start of the game, compared with the mediocre first half, the rhythm of the two sides improved significantly in the second half, and the confrontation became more intense.

Especially for Arsenal, after the intermission, Wenger's tactical strategy has undergone a very obvious change.

Compared with staying in their own half and allowing Manchester City to control the ball smoothly in the backcourt in the first half, Arsenal has a high position in the frontcourt and no longer blindly puts the bus.

As a result, the chances for both sides to threaten the opponent's goal have increased significantly.

In the 49th minute of the game, Fernandinho went up and brought Ozil down, allowing Arsenal to get a free kick about 36 meters in the left area of ​​the center.

Chamberlain drove the ball directly over the penalty area on the right.

At the front of the small penalty area, Giroud blocked Kompany behind him and was the first to rush to the landing point.

But Kompany was not easy to get along with. There was a small movement in his hand, which made Giroud have to jump with his back to the goal after rushing to the landing point.

Meanwhile, Bravo also strikes.

In the next second, he and Da Giroud collided heavily, which caused him to fail to catch the ball with both hands.

After the ball was dropped, it bounced to Xhaka outside the upper corner of the small penalty area.

Facing the ball bouncing off the ground, Xhaka raised his left foot and swung it.

At the same time, Yaya Toure in the area on the right side of the small penalty area quickly took a small step to the right, with his legs together, and Xhaka's explosive shot was blocked by him in the next second.

"Foo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Immediately, the [-] fans in the Wembley stands let out a collective exclamation!

Manchester City fans were choked by Bravo's reckless attack, and they wanted to knock Guardiola's wooden fish again.

On the field, Fernandinho at the front of the penalty area saw the ball bounce out along his left rib, and he quickly followed up laterally.

After getting the ball, seeing that Clichy had come to meet him along the left, Fernandinho blocked Ramsey behind him and immediately kicked to split the side.

But in front of Chrissy on the wing, Chamberlain quickly pushed forward.

Clichy saw Chamberlain's vigor, so to be on the safe side, he didn't stop the ball, but picked the ball to the left of his side's center circle.

On the center line of the wing, Chu Zheng quickly retreated to catch the ball.

He managed to get Gabriel stuck behind him before he hit the point.

Gabriel desperately wanted to squeeze to the front, but Chu Zheng gave him an unshakable feeling like a mountain.

At this moment, Ramsey on the left side of the middle circle quickly ran across, and Chamberlain in front of Chu Zheng also rushed quickly.

Seeing that Chu Zheng was about to be besieged by these three people on the sidewalk, De Bruyne quickly ran to the position where Ramsey left in his ribs, and established a horizontal connection with Chu Zheng.

Behind Chu Zheng, Gabriel saw Ramsey and Chamberlain approaching. In order to prevent Chu Zheng from running away, he secretly grabbed Chu Zheng's jersey behind his right waist.

Chu Zheng's center of gravity was pulled back, and Gabriel's chest was pressed against his back.

Seeing the ball bounced by Ramsey straight in front of him, Chu Zheng leaned against Gabriel behind him the moment Ramsey got close, stretched out his left foot, and padded the ball to the front right.

Immediately afterwards, Chu Zheng suddenly exerted strength in his waist and abdomen, and turned half to the right.

Behind Chu Zheng, Gabriel only heard a squeak, and then suddenly felt his right hand loosen.

At this moment, Gabriel was extremely speechless.

In order to prevent Chu Zheng from breaking free, he even grabbed the jersey at the back and twisted it around, but the jersey was torn directly. This body is too perverted!
Gabriel went to the right, and after Chu Zheng successfully turned around, he turned his back to the center circle and stretched out his right foot to hook in front of Chamberlain. The ball flew up in front of him, flew over his head, and fell straight into the ribs De Bruyne outside the circle.

"Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Seeing that Chu Zheng passed the ball despite being surrounded by three people, the audience at Wembley was in an uproar.

Some older fans in the stands grinned as they watched. Chu Zheng's physical resistance reminded them of Ronaldo and Adriano back then.

On the field, De Bruyne quickly turned around and distributed the ball to the other half after getting the ball.

Keylor Navas followed up and took the ball across the halfway line, but Arsenal returned very quickly.

In just such a shift, Xhaka, Ramsey and others quickly retreated to their own half, and even Giroud came back.

After Navas got the ball on the right side of the middle circle, he saw that there was no one on the right front side, and the side channel in front of him was also blocked by Giroud and Monreal, so he immediately started to lead to the center.

In a blink of an eye, Navas brought the ball to the arc in front of the middle circle.

But Giroud and Ramsey who came over still blocked the middle road tightly.

At this moment, Navas played tricks.

He suddenly increased his speed, tricking Ramsey into thinking that he was going to continue to dribble the ball laterally. After tilting his center of gravity to the right, he suddenly used the instep of his right outside to stab the ball forward between Ramsey and Giroud.

At the front of the 30-meter area in the middle, De Bruyne saw the ball coming, and quickly turned the ball to face the left rib.

At the same time, Jesus, standing in front of Koscielny and Gabriel, immediately turned around at the front of the left rib at the top of the arc and interspersed with the top of the arc on the right.

Gabriel, who was outside the ribs, subconsciously followed two steps.

These two steps instantly widened the position between him and Chamberlain on the sideline.

After seeing the space in the ribs being pulled out by Jesus, Chu Zheng, who was on the left side of Chamberlain, immediately started to push forward to the ribs.

On De Bruyne's side, he also saw the gap in the ribs, but he didn't pass it immediately.

In terms of catching the pass, De Bruyne is no weaker than Chu Zheng, and the two can even be said to be evenly divided.

After Chu Zheng started and rushed two or three steps, De Bruyne calmly stuffed the ball into the penalty area.

In the next second, Chu Zheng and Chamberlain on the inside raced against each other.

Chamberlain is also a well-known fast horse in the Premier League, but before Chu Zheng's abnormal acceleration ability, he is still weaker.

But Chamberlain also had the advantage of an inside position. Although he was half a body behind Chu Zheng, he still stuck Chu Zheng on the outside.

In a blink of an eye, Chu Zheng rushed to the bottom line in the penalty area.

Seeing that Chamberlain was still dragging Koscielny on the right back to prevent him from making a sudden stop and cutting in, Chu Zheng knew that he had few choices.

So after Chu Zheng caught up with the ball before the baseline, he passed the ball directly with his left foot.

Before approaching the goal post, Cech jumped back on the spot, but still couldn't reach the ball floating overhead.

Seeing the ball fall back along the inside of the crossbar, Cech's heart was instantly chilled.

In the middle of the restricted area, Jesus and Silva stood at the front of the small restricted area one after the other.

Gabriel Jesus is surrounded by people, but David Silva behind him is not surrounded by anyone.

At this time, in the penalty area, everyone's attention was attracted by the ball falling back along the inside of the crossbar.

David Silva was the first to judge that the landing point was outside the back post, and he rushed to the landing point.

When Monreal realized the danger, Silva was already on the landing point and completed a crisp close-range volley.

"David!!!!!!!!!!!!!" In the commentary, Martin and Smith suddenly raised their voices!

The Arsenal fans in the stands also clenched their fists, their eyes widened.

On the field, limited by the shooting angle, Silva's shot could only be kicked to the middle, but it happened to meet Cech who was moving to this side.

Cech sat on the ground, blocked with his hands in front of him, and the ball flew forward.

"Huh!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Countless fans were terrified.

However, in the next second, everyone saw that the ball that was blocked by Cech fell to Jesus' feet.

Facing the empty goal, Jesus directly pumped the ball in.

In an instant, the cheers at Wembley Stadium suddenly set off like huge waves.

"The ball went in!!!!!!!!!"

"In the 50th minute of the game, De Bruyne pierced through Arsenal's dense defense with a deadly through ball. Chu Zheng picked a pass and made it back, and Gabriel Jesus scored in front of the goal!"

Seeing the ball flying back and forth along the inside of the crossbar in the slow-motion playback, Zhang Lu praised: "Chu Zheng's pass is also exquisite!"

"Yes!" Zhan Jun nodded with a smile on his face, "If the ball is routed further back, maybe the linesman will raise the flag to indicate that the ball has passed the baseline from above the crossbar."

On the sidelines, Wenger stood quietly, seemingly unresponsive on the surface, but extremely helpless inside.

He was amazed by Chu Zheng and De Bruyne's ability to capture opportunities. The gap in the ribs was almost seized by the two of them as soon as it appeared.

Looking at Guardiola next to him with a faint smile on his face, Wenger was really envious.

Two world-class midfielders, this Spaniard is really lucky.

As long as Chu Zheng and De Bruyne give him one, he will not fall into this embarrassing situation this season.

After a while, Manchester City's celebration ended and Arsenal kicked the ball away.

After the game restarted, Chu Zheng and the others immediately recovered the formation according to the leading plan formulated by Guardiola before the game, and no longer went too deep into the front of Arsenal's penalty area to press.

Seeing the recovery of Manchester City's formation, although the fans in the stands felt that it was a bit early, they could also understand Guardiola's thoughts.

No way, Manchester City is different from Arsenal, they not only have the FA Cup, they also have more important championships to fight for.

At this stage, saving a little energy is a little bit.

On Arsenal's side, due to the shrinking of Manchester City's formation and the weakening of the intensity of the high-post press in the frontcourt, their ball possession rate has also begun to rise rapidly.

This large amount of possession has brought about wave after wave of offense.

As time went on, the wings of Arsenal, who played a 352-[-]-[-] formation on the offensive end, began to take off.

Especially on Chamberlain's side, this guy is in a particularly hot state today, and sometimes Chu Zheng can't stop this guy.

In the 75th minute of the game, Chamberlain made a diagonal cross from the upper corner of the penalty area on the right.

In the Manchester City penalty area, Giroud, who was crushed like a tank, turned into a magnet, sucking Kompany and Otamendi into the middle, leaving the back point directly vacant.

When the ball passed through the middle of the penalty area like a shooting star, Ramsey, Navas and Monreal went straight to the point.

In an instant, the ball fell, and Navas, who was caught in the middle, and Ramsey, who was on the right, raised their legs to reach the ball at the same time.

As a result, no one was able to touch it.

The ball flew across from the toes of the two, and hit the foot of Monreal on the left side of Navas.

Faced with this kind of opportunity, how could Monreal miss it, he kept hitting the ball, and the ball brushed against Bravo's right foot and entered the goal.

Suddenly, Wembley boiled again.

On the sidelines, Wenger also clenched his fists and roared to the sky.

This time point to equalize the score is just right for Arsenal.

But Guardiola next to him was a little uncomfortable.

Now before him is a difficult problem, that is whether to strive to reach the FA Cup final.

But the problem is that if he chooses to fight, then according to the analysis of the current game situation, they are likely to play 30 minutes of overtime with Arsenal.

This is not a small physical burden for Manchester City, which has the task of competing for the Champions League and the Premier League.

In addition, the risk of injury will increase sharply when players playing overtime are overtired.

Any injury to Chu Zheng, De Bruyne, or Kompany would be unbearable for Manchester City.

Thinking about it, Guardiola was unable to make a decision for a long time.

But soon Arsenal helped Guardiola make a choice.

In the 81st minute of the game, Ozil made a free kick in front of the bottom line on the right side of Manchester City, and Koscielny's header from the right side of the penalty point flew to the front point.

Giroud swung his foot on the landing point outside the small penalty area line at the previous point, letting the ball roll diagonally from his crotch into the small penalty area behind him.

At the front of the post, Sanchez quickly followed up horizontally, grabbed the ball with his right foot before Navas made a clearance, and then quickly followed up and swept the kick.

The ball passed through Kompany's crotch in front of Sanchez.

Bravo's vision was blocked by Kompany, he couldn't see the ball at all, and when he fell to the left, he saw the ball rubbing against the inside of the post from the right and entering the goal again.

2-1!

Wembley was boiling again for a while!
On the sidelines, after the score was overtaken, Guardiola immediately made substitution adjustments.

Sane replaced David Silva and Sterling replaced Fernandio.

After these two substitutions, the positions of Chu Zheng and De Bruyne also changed.

Chu Zheng moved to the right midfielder to partner with Toure, and Debrane moved from the right midfielder to the middle.

Guardiola's intention for this substitution is actually very obvious, that is, to use Sane and Sterling to rush.

If you can score two goals in the last 10 minutes, that's the best.

If not, the game is dragged into overtime, then he is ready to play a penalty shootout with Arsenal.

In short, Guardiola doesn't seem to be exhausted with Arsenal, otherwise, even if they reach the final, it will be very unfavorable to Manchester City's future schedule.

But it is a pity that today's Wenger is not Wenger.

After overtaking the score, Wenger waved his hand, and Arsenal shrank back to the penalty area and set up a bus to play a defensive counterattack.

Coupled with the morale boost after the overtake score, until the last second, the Arsenal players who were united as one did not let Manchester City threaten their own gate.

In the end, Manchester City was eliminated 1-2, and Arsenal and Chelsea joined forces in the FA Cup final this season.

After the game, although he won the game, Wenger was ridiculed by the media, saying that he turned the FA Cup into a thermos.

Once Wenger defeated Chelsea in the final to win this year's FA Cup, then Wenger's situation at Arsenal will be much better.

At that time, no matter whether Wenger chooses to renew his contract or turn around and leave, with this FA Cup champion in his hand, he can get a respect.

(End of this chapter)